All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Welcome @Eric Narciso! Good to see another Vegas guy on here.

Thanks James!

I just wanted to get everyone's feedback on what states (specifically cities) they're investing in to get the 2% rule on buy and holds. There are a lot of us in major cities that can't come even close to that. So what are your favorite areas? 

@Ross Greene ya everything I've ever bought has been from the MLS. The only buy and hold I have is the house I live in. I do want to build a buy and hold portfolio but its impossible to get the 2% rule out here in Vegas. So once I build up some more capital from the flips I'll have to decide if I want to look in other states to get better returns.

@Ross Greene this one was on the west side over on Alta and Jones. And yup I'm doing this full time now. I have one that rehab will be finished Friday and I'm on the hunt for my next ones!

Thanks to everyone for all the feedback! As a couple people said it is hard to find deals on the MLS. All I can say is like any deal you have to find a motivated seller and there are some on the MLS. The other flip I have going was from the MLS as well and hopefully I'll make 15-20k on it. I think everything @Will Barnard mentioned was true but another variable left out was the profit made by being a Realtor. I made 3k on the buy side and saved 4k on the listing side. So that gave me an extra 7k in profit I otherwise wouldn't have had. So just in one transaction it shows how valuable having your license can be. I also think it gives the listing agent and seller more confidence that you'll close when you represent yourself as an investor.

Just wanted to share my success story so hopefully others can be encouraged! I decided in January that I was going to form an LLC and start flipping full time. I've done a couple of live and flips prior to this but this is my first true fix and flip. I bought a home in February (which is still on the market) and one in March which just sold! So here is the story on the one that I just closed in March:

I bought the home on 3/10/15 for 99k from the MLS. It was a 4/2 built in 1960 out here in Las Vegas, NV. I'm a licensed Realtor so I also got a 3% commission. It was on the market for 115k for a couple days before I saw it. I put an offer in at 95k with a 3 week close (hard money loan). They countered at 99k and I accepted. The owner was motivated because the tenant reported them to the city for multiple things so they were getting fines and they weren't able to rent it for months until they fixed the issues. I knew it would only cost about 3-4k to get it fixed. The house was move in ready besides those issues.

So anyways to close it I went to two different hard money lenders. I ended up with finding one that wanted only 6k down while charging 4 pts. So I went with that and used my commission to pay some of the closing costs. I ended up coming out pocket about 8k to close. Once we closed I had my contractor fix the issues with the city and a few cosmetic things. it ended up costs about $3500 for everything. I got it back on the market within 4 days of closing. I listed it for 135k and got a full price offer the first day on the market! I accepted and the buyer closed it on 5/3/15.

So it only took 53 days to flip and I ended up making about $23,000 in profit after everything! I definitely have to thank BP for that! Just listening to the Podcasts and reading the forums motivated me to finally start and take action. Hopefully this can motivate someone else!

@Verna M. When you factor the fees of $3200 over 18 months it comes out to about a 3% interest rate. I don't know anyone that will lend me that amount of cash at 3%. And as far as the time it takes less than an hour to call a couple credit card companies and transfer some money on Paypal. But yes with any kind of financing don't miss a payment! If you miss a private money, hard money, credit card, or traditional mortgage payment it will be bad news. And if you were getting 4% return on what you were doing then I would agree that it was a very bad idea. But like I said if you need money for a downpayment and rehab and you're experienced in real estate and making timely payments then its a great strategy to access cash and get a huge return.

@Verna M. I agree if you're doing that to make a 1-2% return on your money its not a very good hustle. But I suggest it for flippers and rehabbers where they may be able to take out 50k and get a 50-100% on it in one deal. And if you get that cash at 0% for 18 months the return will increase based on how many you can flip in that time.

@Royce Talbo yes I did them in two separate years. One account was my wife's and the other was mine (which is a business account). I'm wondering what Western Union's cost would be? It would be nice if every credit card could just do the balance transfer straight into checking! Then we wouldn't have this issue.